Bill Roper Talks with Jeff Green

Jeff Green had an extended talk with Bill Roper, former head of Flagship Studios, their most prolific game being Hellgate: London. It's an in-depth interview, not just a few sound bites wrapped around a few fluff questions.

Of greatest interest to me is Roper's admission that he and the rest of the development team knew their subscription model was a bad idea BEFORE launch. I think this the failure among all others, dooming the game to its current state. I don't buy that it was too late for them to make a shift away from the subscription model. I mean, take a look at what you got with a subscription: an extra avatar or two, increased inventory space, hardcore play. Later on, access to Stonehenge.

That's it.

For $10 a month? No way masses of people were going to eat that $*it sandwich. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: your game will fail if you try to charge people for things they should get for free.

In a big way, I'm glad that Hellgate: London crashed and burned. It's rotting carcass can be a reminder to future developers of what not to do when packaging and marketing their game to the public. It's a shame truly, for HG: L had solid game play at its core. If Roper and company had focused on that instead of itemizing monthly charges for extra bag space and character slots, it might have turned out differently.